


With My Head High

by RiversAndRoses



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alien Politics, Alien Technology, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asphyxiation, Canon Non-Binary Character, Chatting & Messaging, Childhood Trauma, Choking, Crying, Depression, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gemsong, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Transphobia, LGBTQ Themes, Misgendering, Multi, Nightmares, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Steven Universe, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Politics, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, Steven Universe Needs Therapy, Stevens Declining Mental Health, fuck ronaldo, gem biology is weird, not sure how cats work, steven and the gems are found family bc i love that trope, steven voice its a mental breakdown kazoos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22345735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiversAndRoses/pseuds/RiversAndRoses
Summary: Alien races don't quite understand the concept that Steven, a Gem, a Diamond, does not share the same gender or pronouns that his fellow Diamonds do. All because he has his mother's gem. Obviously.He knows he's not her, he's known for years. But maybe it's starting to get to him. Maybe he needs a change.AKA None Gender, Left Trauma (Steven Has A Gender Crisis)The title is from Head High by ONE OK ROCK :]
Relationships: Amethyst & Garnet & Pearl & Steven Universe, Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe, Pearl & Steven Universe, Pearl/Pink Diamond's Pearl (Steven Universe), Sadie Miller/Shep
Comments: 88
Kudos: 305





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this chapter is just a set up lmao
> 
> not a tie in to the dad steven fic
> 
> i adore chat room fics so of course i had to include that aspect (theyre so hard to write tho ;( )

Steven warps home, finally, after about a week at homeworld, he was feeling drained. Maybe more so than usual. He flops down on his bed with a groan, not caring if any of the gems are downstairs. 

“Steven?” Pearl calls up

“Yeah?” he says, voice slightly muffled from the blanket.

“Oh! You’re home! Good,” she says and he can tell that she’s smiling. He feels the weight shift a little, and he lifts his head to see her sitting on the edge of his bed. “Are… you feeling all right?” 

“I’m just tired… spent a whole week with the diamonds, it felt like it was going insane. The only thing that kept me sane was Spinel I think.” Steven groans.

She chuckles, leans down and places a kiss on his forehead, “get some sleep, I’ll be with Volleyball if you need me.” 

“Wait-” he sits up slightly, “you’ve… been hanging out with her a lot are you two…?”

Pearl blushes and grins, “yes… you could say that.” 

“I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you. Call or text if you need me, Garnet and Amethyst are at little homeschool. Love you, Steven!” she says as he heads down the stairs.

“Love you too, Pearl!”

He pulls out his phone and opens the group chat. Time to let everyone know he’s not fucking dead. He can use it while in space, but he was just way too busy to check his phone.

**Steb : Guess who's not dead**

**Steb : But is very tired**

**Concon: Steven! I’m gonna text u <3**

**Steb : Ok but I’m going to sleep soon since I didn’t get much rest on homeworld. **

**Concon: Kk**

**Steb : Also u guys know that pink pearl.**

**RONDALDO: Vaguely, but yes**

**Steb : Just found out that she and pearl are a thing and it makss me so happt to know tht pearl moved om from mom. **

**Peedee : Aw, they just walked by :)**

**Steb: :D**

**Steb : I’m going to tabke a nap. I’m exhausred and lseepy **

**Dr. Doodoo: I can tell from the spelling errors. Get a good rest bro**

**He opens the text that Connie had sent him moments ago; it was full of hearts.**

Steven smiles, puts his phone down on the nightstand, kicks off his shoes and takes off his jacket. Barely able to stay awake as he buries himself underneath the covers. 

~

It’s a couple of hours later when Steven wakes up again. He feels better, but there’s an odd feeling in his chest that he can’t describe. It doesn’t hurt, but he just feels… strange. Other than that, he’s fine. 

But while he was asleep, Cat Steven made her way upstairs and into his bed, where she’s lying across his legs.

He legally cannot get up now.

The hybrid picks his phone up off the nightstand again and takes a photo of the feline with a smile

**Deejay cream: So I walked in on onion performing some sort of ritual and Idk man I’m freaked out.**

**Concon: Is he Wiccan?**

**Deejay cream: Idk**

**Deejay cream: I just let him do his thing. Mom and yellow dad do too.**

**RONDALDO: ONION IS A BEING OF PURE CHAOS**

Steven snorts, what did he come in on?

**Steb : Well he listens to rainbow**

**Deejay cream: Oh fuck hi steven, I think that’s one of the few people he does. He and mom anyways.**

**Peedee : I think it’s the Mary Poppins vibes**

**Kikaroni : IDK I get taako vibes from them sometimes**

**Jenjen : Ur way too obsessed with that podcast**

**Concon: No she's right. Rainbow is capable of both**

**Steb : Honestly I think he’s a mixed bag**

**Steb : But then again, I am him. So my view of things is probably different from u guys **

**Steb : I am trapped by cat steven btw**

**Steb has sent an image**

**Jenjen : Oh I love her**

**Steb : She's a good kitty**

He leans over to kiss her; she mewls and stares up at him, moving to sit to lie down on his chest. Forcing him to lay down again.

**Steb : Gave her a kiss ad now she’s on my chest**

**Steb : Garnets gonna be jealous. **

**Concon: If lion did that I would suffocate and die**

**Dr. Doodoo: A great way to die**

**Steb : He did that to me, that’s how I discovered I could go inside his mane**

**Steb : And that pearl used to watch me in my sleep**

**Steb : Lion is an ass but I love him too**

**Concon: He makes a rlly good pillow. Until he moves**

**Concon: Does not surprise me at all that pearl did that**

Absentmindedly, he scratches the cat behind her ears and smiles at her purrs, Cat Steven may be Garnets, but he thinks the cat loves everyone equally. 

Steven holds his phone up and takes another photo to share with his friends.

**Steb : I wish my phone included a diamond communicator or whatever bc I should probably check it but there is a cat on mea. I am trapped.**

**Larzolini : Peridot made ur phone right?**

**Steb : Yeah how else would I have any contact to any of u guys, the gems or my dad if I didn’t**

**Larzolini : Ask her to install the communicator on it**

**Steb : Oh shit u right**

**Steb : Ill do that tomorrow. Really do not feel like getting up today maybe**

**Steb : How are things in space, btw?**

**Larzolini: P good**

**Sade: Oh shit stevens back!**

**Steb : Ye, only thing keeping me sane was spinel :’)**

**Steb : I love the diamonds but they can be a lot, especially white and yellow**

**Concon: Tbh I think blue is the most chill out of all of them**

**Concon: Idk how spinel does it**

**RONDALDO: Maybe it's because she’s around them 24/7, btw, steven, could you ask her some questions the next time you see her? It’s Important**

**RONDALDO: Also, sour cream, could you describe what onion was doing specifically? Because I have a few theories**

**Deejay cream: I just think he was summoning some sort of demon Idk man, I’m not asking him, invasion of privacy bro**

**Steb : Yeah, ill let you know when I’m going back next**

**Steb : Being an intergalactic monarch is hard, I just want to do normal teen stuff sometimes**

**Sade: Yeah that’s like, a lot. If u want to tell us about it we’re here**

**Steb : Yep**

He hears the warp pad go off and cat steven perks up, sits up and mewls

“What is it?” Steven asks her, “you think that’s Garnet?” 

She looks back at him and meows, patting his face slightly. 

He laughs, maybe she knew he was feeling down too? Animals are interesting like that. 

Lo-and-behold, the fusion makes her way up the stairs, a smile on her face as she comes over and sits by the bed, Cat Steven meows loudly again and rub her face against garnets. Moving off of steven.

“I’m free!” he proclaims, sitting up with a laugh. 

“How was your meeting?” Garnet asks, possibly already knowing the answer

“Tiring, draining. The usual, but other than that it was decent. Making progress with making peace with those aliens, they needed me to be the mediator. But I’m also a diamond so they needed me there anyway.” he sighs, “I just need a few days to rest.” 

She nods, stroking Cat Steven’s back, “take as much time as you need. Self-care comes first.” 

“I know.” he smiles, “might ask Connie to come over if she can.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” she says standing up, putting the cat on her shoulder. “I finished my classes today, let me know if you need anything.”

He gets out of bed and stretches, his back cracks satisfyingly, “yep, I will.” 

She wraps him in a quick hug before she heads downstairs so he can change out of the clothes he was wearing from earlier today. 

Picking out a fresh shirt and a pair of pants, he changes quickly. Steven goes to check his communicator to see if any of The Diamonds had sent him any new messages, and there are none, luckily. So he sends a quick text to Connie to ask if she wants to hang out before he heads down the stairs to eat something and use the bathroom. 

His phone buzzes as he munches on his sandwich, Connie responded to his text.

**Strawberry ❤️🍓: yeah, I’m free!**

**Strawberry❤️🍓: u going to come w the dondai or am I going to have to yell for lion.**

**Biscuit ❤️ 🥐: yeah, I’m coming in the dondai. Leaving now, (heart emoji)**

**Strawberry ❤️ 🍓: ❤️**

“I’ll be back, Garnet, just going to go pick up Connie.” he says before grabbing his keys off of the hooks. She gives him a thumbs-up as he puts his shoes back on quickly, jumping off the side of the balcony, he lands on the soft sand below. He enters his car and drives towards his girlfriend’s house. 

It doesn’t take long for him to get there, seeing as she lives on the other side of town and the town is pretty small. 

He puts the car in park and gets out to knock on the door, but Connie opens the door, beating him to it

“Steven!” she yells like she hasn’t seen him in forever, which isn’t necessarily a lie, and pulls him in a hug, pulling away for a moment to pull him in a kiss. “I missed you!” she pulls him back into the hug tightly.

He chuckles, “missed you too.” 

“Have her back before 6:30. We have reservations at a restaurant a few towns over.” Dr. Maheswaran says with a smile. 

“Will do!” 

Connie lets him go, taking his hand instead, “how was it?” she asks.

“Tiring,” he opens the door for her, “m’lady.” 

“Such a gentleman.” she teases, kissing his cheek. 

The drive back to the temple is comfortingly silent aside from the tape deck playing some of his dad’s old music, they don’t need to say anything, really.

“So what do you want to do? I’m assuming not much.”

“Yeah, I just want to chill.” He responds, walking up the stairs to the beach house.

“Hello, you two,” Garnet says, cat steven perfectly situated on her lap as she sits at the outside table, enjoying the fresh air and the breeze off the beach.

“Hey garnet, just going to chill in my room.”

She nods and smiles.

“What’d I miss in the group chat while I was gone?”

Connie hums, “not much,”

“Oh, come on, I always miss something when I’m gone for that long.” He kisses her softly and pulls her onto the bed. “There has to be something.”

“I’m serious, it wasn’t anything too big.” She grins and presses her face against his chest. “If you ask them, they’ll say the same thing.”

**Steb : did I miss anything while I was gone?**

**Steb : also I have Acquired a Connie. **

**Sad: Nah, not much, surprisingly**

**Peedee : unless u count Ronaldo coming up with a new conspiracy theory that’s literally it**

**Peedee : be grateful that you don’t live with him**

**RONDALDO: I’m offended peedee**

**Peedee : Good**

“See, I told you.”

“Okay, okay, maybe you’re right.” he laughs, “I’m still feeling drained,” he admits

“Maybe too much social interaction?” his girlfriend suggests, “it’s fine if you take another nap.”

“I don’t want to mess up my sleep schedule more than it already is by me going to homeworld for a week.” he’s been working on fixing it for a while since he messed it up after not needing to get up so early for little homeschool.

“Don’t force yourself to stay up. That’s not healthy.” Connie looks up at him, holding his face in her hands, “I know you’ve been struggling lately, but… at least take care of yourself.”

He smiles, “ill do my best.” 

“That’s all I wanted to hear.” she kisses him again, softly and tenderly, “I don’t mind if you do fall asleep. You need it.”

The two of them talk a little while longer, eventually, he drifts back to sleep. When he wakes up again, Connie is gone. Considering its nearly 7 pm, it's to be expected. He doesn’t mind. Connie had something planned with her family.

That strange feeling in his chest is back.

He’s not quite too sure what it means. But he doesn’t like it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven returns to homeworld

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey just a quick warning, theres some misgendering in this chapter bc aliens are shitty (might as well warn about this even tho steven currently is not in gender crisis mode, its for my lovely fellow trans people <3 also just in case if anyone gets uncomfortable with it. it starts with "they sneer, their eyes land on steven" and then goes on until around the end of the chapter. i love u)
> 
> the group of gems i mentioned were all from my abandoned su fic from 2017, constellations, that i recently started rewriting. please dont go reading it. it is bad
> 
> ive had this chapter done for a few days now but recently got to posting

A week later, he’s back on Homeworld. Dropping his things off in Pink’s old room, now his and Spinels shared room. Mostly his still, though. 

Though, he’s not surprised to see her in here entertaining the pebbles.

“Steven!” She says happily as soon as he opens the door, causing the pebbles to swarm his feet.

“Hey, Spin,” he smiles softly, he and spinel have formed sort of an odd sibling-like relationship, much like he did with those three rose quartzes. 

“You look a little down! What’s going on Stevaroni?” Spinel asks as he greets the pebbles.

He sighs, “I don’t know. A lot? I don’t- I don’t know how to describe it.” he drops his bags on the ground, where they make audible clunks. The two of them wince at that. 

“Well. if it's something you think you can't talk with the diamonds about, I’m here.” she offers, shrugging slightly.

“Yeah, ill let you know,” he says, smiling as she wraps him in a hug.

Two years ago, he would’ve found this completely annoying, considering what happened then. All he wanted was to get his nonexistent happily ever after back. Now he’s not even sure he’ll even have one of those now. 

That first Spinel he met was angry. When she was rejuvenated, she was spunky, silly and annoying. Though, he might’ve thought that because the gems forgot who they were because of what she had done. When Spinel herself remembered who she was, he could see all the pain that his mother had caused. What 6000 years of waiting did to her. He could finally understand. 

Now, she's got her spunk back, she’s still got her silliness, but… more restrained. As if she now knows when to entertain and when not to.

Steven remembers what she told him once when they were fighting on top of her injector. How she only changed for the worst while he changed for the good. 

Things can change, isn’t that interesting? So much has happened in the two years. Hell, the past four.

She changed. She improved. She’s happy.

“Steeeveeen?” Spinel waves a hand in his face, “you good? You zoned out for a second there.”

“Oh- oh yeah, I just got lost in thought.”

“Yeah? What’s going on in that little head of yours?” she lightly knocks on his head.

“Nothing too important.” the door to the room opens and Amazonite walks in with a smile. 

“Hey Amazon,” steven greets the permafusion.

“Hi!” she pulls out a few holo screens from her visor, “heard you were back so I just wanted to see how my favorite boy was doing! Also to give you your schedule.” she says, scrolling through her screens and handing him it, where it shrunk into a handheld size. 

“Thank you,” he says as he looks through it, just as busy as ever. Hopefully, he can squeeze this stuff in between the peace makings.

“The Diamonds noticed that with the week before, the meetings with Iolorians barely left any time for you to rest. So they managed to convince them to allow for longer rests so you can recharge and eat properly.” 

“Oh, wow…” he smiles, “that’s great!” 

“Sure is!” she returns his smile. “Now, it's time to meet with the diamonds, still a lot of important things to talk about!”

She turns to walk out, motioning him to follow, so he does, Spinel does too. 

He’s gotten used to walking the winding halls of the diamond palace, which are usually filled with gems of all types. 

He waves to a group of mixed gems, a couple of pearls, a few peridots, a scheelite, a flame obsidian, a taaffeite (who’s girlfriend is one of the pearls), a kyanite, and a rhodochrosite. They all wave back with a smile.

As he’s walking, he pulls out his phone and opens the group chat

**Steb : found out the diamonds managed to convince Iolorians (the aliens we’ve been trying to make peace with) allowed me to get longer breaks**

**Peedee : nice**

“Whatcha doin Steven?” Spinel asks, looking over his shoulder as he texts his friends

“Talking to my friends, ill tell them you say hi if you’d like?”

“Sure!” 

**Steb : spinel says hi**

**RONDALDO: HI**

**RONDALDO: I HAVE QUESTIOM**

**Steb : kinda on our way to the other diamonds, maybe ask later**

**Steb : sorry**

**Peedee : ronaldo, get back to work dipshit**

**RONDALDO: >:(**

**Peedee : im on break bro**

**RONDALDO: >:’(**

**Larzoli : damn peedee, when did u get all savage like that?**

**Larzoli : also hi spinel **

**Larzoli : btw, we’re probably going to stop by homeworld soon so watch out 4 me**

“Who’s larzoli?” Spinel asks

“Lars, captain of the Off Colors, owned a pastry shop in Beach City for a while, not sure if you met him or not.” Steven comments, getting a nostalgic feeling when he mentions the shop, it’s still going strong now that Blue Lace has been running it.

“Ah! Lars, I met him once before.” Amazonite smiles with a fond look on her face, “or at least the Hiddenite half of me did. She was at the cosmic jubilee.” 

“Oh huh! That’s interesting.” 

“Emerald was so mad, she was throwing a tantrum for days. It was scary but honestly funny, looking back on it.” she laughs.

“I can imagine,” gems throwing tantrums are something that steven doesn’t like to think about. Considering some of his own...

**Steb : Amazonite (the gem that’s escorting me and Spin rn) says that one of her components met u at the cosmic jubilee thing, Hiddenite if that rings a bell.**

**Larzoli : oH YEAH I REMEMBER HER**

**Larzoli : helped me get the ship actually**

**Kikaroni : wow i wish my life was that cool**

**Larzoli : all u gotta do is die in space**

**Kikaroni : no thanks**

**RONDALDO: but tbh, lars did become a better person afterward**

**Larzoli : normally id feel insulted, but honestly that’s fair, I was an asshole**

**Sade: u sure fuckin were**

**Larzoli : i did apologize for what i did to u**

**Larzoli : honestly u didnt deserve me either, sure i improved as a person, gradually (no thanks to steven) space changed me for the better and im glad u found shep**

**Sade: :’)**

**Sade: wait- i forgot, we didnt add them here**

**Sade: shit**

**Sade: fuck thats what i was forgetting**

**Dr. Doodoo: damn guess we all forgot**

**Steb : oh man i didnt realize it either. **

**Steb : go head and invite, i cant do it now bc diamond biz**

**Concon: aw man right when i come on u gotta leave :’(**

**Steb: srry ❤️**

Steven puts his phone away just as Amazonite opens the door to the throne room, where the diamonds are all sitting in their respective places. 

“Hello, Steven! Hello Spinel!” Blue Diamond calls out as soon as the door opens, “thank you, Amazonite.” she holds out her hand for Steven to step onto as Yellow is greeted by Spinel.

“No problem Blue,” the fusion grins and takes her position next to the blue pearl who waves at the hybrid with a small smile. 

“Hey,” he waves back at the pearl as he steps up onto her hand. Reluctantly, he allows himself to be squished up against her face in the semblance of a hug. He’s then passed off to White who only smiles at him, and then yellow who pats his head gently with a finger, setting him down onto his throne. Which has been modified to fit him more.

“The Iolorians were rather upset to see that you were gone.” yellow says, “they refused to talk without you here, but we were lucky enough to get you longer breaks.” 

“Amazonite told me, yeah,” he sighs, he can already feel a headache coming on as he watches said gem leave with Spinel.

“Good,” White says, her voice vibrates through his entire being, before it was uncomfortable, now it’s just… strange. “First, we need to go through the updates, then we shall get back to the peacemaking process.” 

Steven takes this as a chance to open his holoscreen and scroll through the news of what technically is his court.

Even though Homeworld doesn’t declare who's in what court anymore, that system is still there. Just to make things easier.

He doesn’t know how it worked before. 

To be honest, he still doesn’t. 

His court comprises the rose quartzes, the famethyst back on the zoo, the cross-fusions, off colors (though off-color is a broad term, albeit an old one which is being worked on being changed, too) and anyone else who doesn’t feel like they belong in any of the other diamonds courts. Plus the gems who live in Little Homeworld. though, he doesn’t exactly consider them as his. Since all gems are free now.

He started taking up more responsibility on Homeworld after quitting little homeschool. It gave him something to do that wasn’t plants.

It… kinda feels good.

“Oh! Before we get started,” Steven says, twisting to look up at white, “is it possible for peridot to link my communicator with my phone? Just so it’s easier to contact you guys?” 

“I don’t see why not,” Yellow says, “she was able to allow your primitive device to function in space, wasn’t she?” He nods in confirmation, “it would be helpful since you have taken up more responsibility on the throne.”

“Yes, I think that would be a wonderful idea.” Blue smiles.

“Great! I’ll ask her when I can.” He smiles in return.

The announcements go by smoothly, he listens, albeit he’s distracted by going through all of his messages from the past week and a half. It may be unprofessional, but he has some catching up to do. Most of the announcements were about current reforms anyway.

His commercial for little homeschool plays afterward. Then following it are various other announcements.

“Are the Iolorians ready?” Yellow asks as amazonite and a couple of other hiddenites enter the room, for logging, and Volleyball replacing Blue Pearl as she has a class that she needs to attend back on earth. 

“Yes, they are impatient as ever,” the diamonds former pearl responds in return, annoyance is clear on on her face instead of her usual smugness, “maybe they’ll be slightly happier and tolerable now that Steven is here.” she scoffs, Volleyball laughs beside her.

“Yikes…” steven says to himself as he closes the holoscreen.

“They still don’t seem to understand!” the pearl says sounding increasingly frustrated. 

“Yes, we know.” Yellow groans, rolling her head back and squeezing her eyes shut.

That strange feeling that steven felt in his chest when he returned to Earth is slowly starting to ebb back and he hates it. This is why he felt so drained. This is why he was so tired. He only had two days of this the last time he was here. Who knows how long he’ll have to deal with it this time.

He thought he was done with this part of his life, especially years ago. Back when things with homeworld were bad, back when he wasn’t too sure what would happen next. Back when he thought he _wanted_ to be like _her_. Back when he didn’t know about all the _awful things_ she had done. Back before… everything. 

Back before they considered him as _Rose Quartz_ , as _Pink Diamond,_ by gems he didn’t know. 

But this is different. He’s known as Steven now, by all gems, to some alien races. But of course, some still call him by her name. 

These aliens are those people, they’re so persistent. When they acknowledge him, they had called him by _that_ name, constantly. So much that it _hurts_. 

Now he remembers why he took that break. He's not sure if he's ready for this again.

He braces himself by gripping the throne beneath him, hard enough that his knuckles turn white. The throne is sturdy enough that it doesn’t break. 

Blue Diamond gives him a sympathetic look, then one with guilt. She gave him that look the last time. She understands in the best way she can.

The holoscreen flickers to life, there’s a slight bit of static before the picture is clear. The leading Iolorian is staring at them all, stoic and emotionless. 

They sneer, their eyes land on Steven. 

“I see that _Pink_ has returned. What took her so long?” they say, continuing to glare at him. 

“As we’ve said before, Your Royalty, we do not tolerate that you call him Pink.” White Diamond sneers in return. 

He can feel the venom in her voice, running through his entire being, but he does not reprimand her for talking to “lower life forms” in such a way. Its nerve-wracking hearing her talk that way.

“ _She_ can speak up for _herself,_ can't _she_? _She’s_ here now.” they grin emphasizing those pronouns because they know he hates it, “unless you’re going to continue speaking for _her_ like you’ve been doing. Like how you did thousands of years ago with my ancestors.”

“Things are different now!” Steven speaks up, “I’m not full Gem! I’m half-human!” Frustration rises in his voice as he struggles to keep himself calm, to not let himself turn pink out of anger again. “I’m-“ his voice catches in his throat and he takes a deep breath. Trying to calm down before he continues. “I need breaks. Humans are fragile creatures, we need to sleep, eat and drink to survive.” He explains, exhaling through his nose. They’re trying to be civil, he reminds himself. 

But it’s hard to be civil when his existence is once again being insulted by somebody he barely knows.

“I know what _humans_ do,” they say, the voice laced with disgust and venom. “I don’t understand why you needed your so-called ‘breaks’ extended, _Pink_. You’re a gem, aren’t you?”

He wants to explain why but yellow gives him a sparing glance that practically tells him to shut up. To let them handle it.

“We’ve already explained this to you, your royalty.” White says, sighing, “it's foreign to us gems, too, but _he_ needs to survive.” She emphasizes his pronouns to make a point, and that pang in his chest goes away, only just for the slightest moment. He’s grateful. “We will not be going over this again.”

“Tread carefully, or I might take back my statement about allowing those ‘breaks’ to be longer.” 

He sees how Blue and Yellow react to that. Blue frowns deeply, her eyes show the slightest hint of anger. 

Yellow, however, does not hide her anger. She's never been able to hide her anger well, she leans forward on her seat, her hands folded together underneath her chin. 

It reminds him of when Blue finally understood when she took him and Connie to Yellow’s throne room, where she sat exactly like that. With the bubble full of his family floating directly above her head. He remembers her anger.

“Right.” Yellow, sighs, “let’s get on with it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the abrupt ending, i didnt want to drag the chapter on
> 
> yeet


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven talks to his friends after a long meeting. He also has a nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is mostly chatfic lmao
> 
> the asphyxiation and choking tags are only for the nightmare, if i need to put a warning for it here in the notes please let me know and i will do that
> 
> as for the new chat names  
> Diamond Leaf: steven  
> Sword Leaf 420: connie  
> cryptid leaf 69: ronaldo  
> deejay leaf: sour cream  
> leaf but gay: sadie  
> fry leaf: peedee  
> space leaf: lars  
> doctor leaf blaze it: buck  
> fry leaf 1: jenny  
> fry leaf 2: kiki  
> leaf that has no gender: shep

It’s a couple of hours later now and Steven is nibbling on a granola bar as he lays down on the makeshift bed, he’s not really all that hungry but might as well eat since he hasn’t in a while.

He opens up his phone and goes right to his messaging app.

**Diamond Leaf: idk what time it is there but fuck dude I’m upsetti spaghetti **

**Diamond Leaf: uh**

**Deejay Leaf: what’s wrong dude**

**Deejay Leaf: joke u missed**

**Deejay Leaf: buck went power hungry**

**Diamond Leaf: okay,**

**Cryptid leaf69: welcome to leaf world may I take your help**

**Cryptid Leaf69: also it’s almost noon**

**Sword Leaf 420: what’s wrong, steven?**

**Diamond Leaf: an issue I thought I was done with years ago. I didn’t mention it last time bc it wasnt as bad as today**

**Sword Leaf 420: oh. OH**

**Sword Leaf 420: need me to call u?**

**Diamond Leaf: no I’m fine rn, munching on a granola bar in bed**

**Doctor Leaf Blaze it: sometimes the power is too much**

**Space Leaf: issue?**

**Space Leaf: oh, OH WAIT**

**Space Leaf: yikes**

**Space Leaf: the crew and i will be there soon**

**Leaf That Has No Gender: huh?**

**Leaf That Has No Gender: also hey steven**

**Diamond Leaf: hey shep**

**Diamond Leaf: dw about it, its just something from a few years ago**

**Cryptid Leaf69: the being ur own mom thing?**

**Diamond Leaf: h**

**Diamond Leaf: hh**

**Diamond Leaf: yeah**

**Pizza Leaf 1: ronaldo we said we would never bring that up again**

**Cryptid Leaf 69: OH FUCK RIGHT SPORRY I FORGOT**

**Diamond Leaf: its fine**

**Sword Leaf 420: do u think its even worth trying to make peace w them if they arent even going to respect u**

**Diamond Leaf: idk, and honestly i dont want to talk about it right now**

**Sword Leaf 420: understandable, i love u**

**Diamond Leaf: ily too**

“Steven.” Yellow Pearl walks in with Volleyball trailing behind her, “aren’t you supposed to be ‘sleeping?’” she asks.

“Resting. I’m eating right now, though.” he holds up his granola bar and waves it around, “I’ll try to sleep after.”

She sighs, “all right. As long as you get proper rest, we don’t want a grumpy Steven, do we?.” she walks out, only leaving him and Volleyball in the room.

“No… we don’t.” he grumbles, remembering how well that went last time

“Are… you okay?” she asks, coming to sit down on the bed. “Pearl asked me to check up on you. Also, I saw that you were pretty frustrated while walking over here.” 

“I’m- I’m fine.” the teen says, putting on a smile, his exhaustion catching up to him. That strange feeling returns with full force, now there is a dull ache with it.

She purses her lips, not entirely believing him, “well, if you do need anything, let us know?” 

“Yeah. I will.”

She gives him a smile and a quick hug, leaving him be for now. 

He returns to his phone, taking an actual bite out of his granola bar now

**Leaf But Gay: i dont think i can explain it to you without stevens Permission, since ur new to all the gem stuff n shit**

**Diamond Leaf: hey sorry volleyball and yellow p (i really need to ask her what she wants to name herself) came and checked up on me**

**Diamond Leaf: also what**

**Leaf But Gay: shep asked what was going on and im Assuming that i cant explain anything without you giving me permission to do so**

**Diamond Leaf: yeah sure**

**Leaf But Gay: sheep, im comin over**

**Leaf That Has No Gender: k**

**Deejay Leaf: I’m sending u positive vibes into the atmosphere**

**Diamond Leaf: thanks sc I’m feelin them**

**Pizza Leaf 2: hopefully you can sort everything out??**

**Space Leaf: maybe tell the diamonds how much its bothering u**

**Diamond Leaf: I’m sure they already know**

**Diamond Leaf: Yellow looked Pissed earlier**

**Diamond Leaf: the Exact same look when she was brooding in the dark that one time after the ball and all of that**

**Sword Leaf 420: yikes that’s not a fun look to be given**

**Fry leaf: excuse me what**

**Fry leaf: yellow diamond broods in the dark?**

**Diamond Leaf: I think so**

**Diamond Leaf: actually gems can see in the dark**

**Diamond Leaf: our eyes glow like cats if u shine a light on them**

**Sword Leaf 420: that explains so much actually**

**Diamond Leaf: I thought I told u that**

**Sword Leaf 420: u didnt**

**Diamond Leaf: oh oops**

**Diamond Leaf: I mean I didn’t really find out until like,,, half a year ago**

**Cryptid Leaf 69: and you’re just telling us now?**

**Diamond Leaf: I’m sorry??**

**Diamond Leaf: gem anatomy is kinda fuckin weird, so go ahead and ask questions about it, I’ll try to answer w what I know. **

**Diamond Leaf: I might fall asleep in the middle of this, so just a warning**

**Cryptid Leaf 69: !!!**

**Pizza Leaf 2: how come some of the formerly corrupted gems still have some parts of them from their corrupted forms**

**Diamond Leaf: oh! We think that’s because I’m half human, so theyre fine! But theres just a little bit left over**

**Diamond Leaf: like how all the quartzes have horns**

**Diamond Leaf: and bixbites claw**

**Cryptid Leaf 69: can gems reproduce**

**Diamond Leaf: … hm**

**Diamond Leaf: there were kindergartens and stuff but now that those are now no longer allowed to be used I’m not too sure**

**Diamond Leaf: but I think I overheard that theres a way to organically produce, like how humans do? But it hasnt been used in a millennia**

**Diamond Leaf: I’ll have to ask the diamonds abt that tho**

**Diamond Leaf: the final batch of kindergarten gems should b ready soon on slipha blue 17 tho, so maybe it’ll be addressed after that**

**Cryptid Leaf 69: eggs?**

**Diamond Leaf: no**

**Deejay Leaf: gross!**

**Diamond Leaf: i actually dont know lol, if I find out if eggs are a thing I’m going to fucking lose it and kinkshame my entire race**

**Deejay Leaf: do gems have swears**

**Diamond Leaf: yes**

**Diamond Leaf: clod is the favorite of ur local peridot**

**Diamond leaf: “ dont tumble my rocks” - zircon from when I went on trial for my moms crimes**

**Diamond Leaf: a lot of gemglyph swears too, I’m still in the process of learning the language tho**

**Deejay Leaf: are the gems on their bodies their brains**

**Diamond Leaf: ye**

**Diamond Leaf: if u get shattered ur fuckin dead bro**

**Diamond Leaf: if my gem were on my head, itd probably be jutting into my brain. Id probably be super fuckin dead if The Thing happened w that**

**Diamond Leaf: idk if I’m missing any organs in my stomach bc of it tho**

**Sword Leaf 420: ive been meaning to ask, can you feel the tip of your gem when u lay on your stomach? Can you feel it when you press the skin around it? **

**Diamond Leaf: hm**

Steven readjusts to lie down on his stomach. He never really enjoyed sleeping on his stomach when he was younger and now he understands why. He can somewhat feel the tip of his gem poking into his stomach, making it feel super uncomfortable.

**Diamond Leaf: oh yeah this is uncomfortable**

**Diamond Leaf: i hate it**

He then flips back over onto his back, preparing himself mentally to squish the skin around his gem. He tries not to think about white digging into his skin, pulling it out, leaving him to die on the floor. 

He can’t. Even though it's been four years since it happened, it still burns in his mind 

**Diamond Leaf: as for the second one, I Cannot Do That as it brings up memories from The Thing**

**Pizza Leaf 2: oh boy ronaldo has been typing for a while**

**Diamond Leaf: Big Fear**

**Doctor Leaf: why do gems have teeth**

**Diamond Leaf: Im gonna go to sleep cause I feel like one of the Pearl’s are going to appear out of the ether and scold me for being awake at any moment. I will read the backlog, dw ronaldo. **

**Diamond Leaf: also, buck i will answer that when i wake up**

Steven then puts his phone down by his bag and readjusts his pillows and drifts off to sleep.

But his sleep isn’t as dreamless as he hoped.

He finds himself back in that outfit.

_No._

He can’t go through this again

_He can’t_

He stares at himself in the mirror that’s manifested in front of him. He’s back in pinks outfit. His eyes are bright pink, much like when he gets angry. Though they look more tired than anything else.

Why is he in this damned outfit? Don’t the diamonds know he isn’t her?

“Pink.” White's voice rings out through the room, the mirror shatters, sending splinters of glass out everywhere. He reflexively summons his shield to prevent any of the shards to get lodged in his skin. But nothing hits.

“What are you doing, Starlight? You know you aren’t supposed to use that shield of yours, don’t you? Why do you even have it out, anyway?”

“Y-yes… I- I don’t know,” he says reflexively, his head hanging in shame, the shield disappears, but he knows everything about this is wrong. It isn’t supposed to be like this. He’s not supposed to be treated like her.

_Everything about this is wrong._

“What’s so wrong about it?” Blue wonders, appearing next to her white counterpart, “there is nothing to worry about. Everything is as it should be.” She uses a finger to lift his head to look her in the eyes.

While they are usually soft and caring now, here they are uncharacteristically cold and uncaring; completely void of any emotion. 

_This is a dream,_ he has to remind himself as he squeezes his eyes shut. _They won’t hurt you anymore. They said they wouldn’t._

“What is she blabbering about?” Yellow sneers, appearing on the other side of White, “snap out of it Pink, you’re better than this.” 

“Stop it…” he mutters, voice breaking, tears threaten to fall down his face. _This isn’t right, this isn’t real._

“Oh starlight…” White croons, “we’re only doing what’s best for you. You know this.” 

“I know,” he says, once again involuntarily. 

His hands flash to hers. Just for a moment. A sob catches in his throat.

“Then why are you acting up like this again?”

“She’s just doing it for attention.” Yellow says, turning away from him, “just like she did before.” 

“She should learn to listen to us. Then maybe none of this would've happened.” Blue adds. “She needs to learn how to act like a proper Diamond”

That feeling in his chest tightens. He can barely breathe now, he wheezes in and out, doing his best to get the most oxygen as he can. Why is he having such a reaction to being referred to as her? He never reacted like this before. 

“Starlight, what do you have to say for yourself? Do you apologize for what you did wrong?” 

_What did he do wrong?_

“Stop acting dumb Pink, you know what you did.” 

“I- I’m” he chokes out. “I’m sorry.” 

It tightens like a vice, turning and turning until his airways are closed tight. He can’t breathe anymore. Why can't he breathe anymore? 

Before he knows it, White is holding him in a tight grip. Her two fingers cover his torso and neck. They squeeze, cutting off his airways further. Crushing him.

He needs to breathe.

How do you breathe when you’re a gem? What’s breathing?

“You will listen to us pink. You will learn to stop this silly game. You will learn to stop pretending. You will get rid of this silly form of yours. You will be good as new as soon as we’re done with you.” white says, her eyes glowing brighter and brighter until it blinds him.

She? Is she blinded? Is she back to normal? Is she here? Is she okay?

“Steven?” 

Who’s steven?

“Steven!” 

_**Who?** _

“Steven wake up!” the voice grows closer. It’s familiar.

His body falls. Like a glorified rag doll. He can't see. He can’t breathe. All he can feel is pain.

“Steven!” there it is again. 

His body is being shaken, his eyes snap open. 

He gasps for air, his lungs burn. 

His vision is blurred as he comes to. 

Steven realizes he’s crying. 

“Are you okay, steven?”

“Lars?” he chokes out. 

“Yeah. yeah. I’m here. Spinel is here too.” 

He’s still breathing heavily, his hands are shaking, his chest hurts. He feels horrible. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeet my squeet


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven somewhat recovers from his nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO THAT NEW TRAILER, HUH?

He takes a moment to come to his senses, to calm down and get his breathing even. He can hear the hushed conversation that Lars and Spinel are having next to him, the concerned chattering of the pebbles who must’ve overhead everything.

“I- I had a nightmare,” he says softly, to no one in particular. 

“Are you okay?” Lars asks, tentatively reaching out to him, “can I?” 

Steven nods and Lars wraps his arms around the hybrid, rubbing circles into his back as he once again bursts into tears. 

“Must’ve been a bad one, huh?” Lars whispers.

He nods again, his chest still feels tight.

“they sent me to wake you up, then pinkie over here shows up,” Spinel says, ignoring the glare the other teen gives her, “you were muttering and sweating and all that.”

Steven takes a few deep breaths in and out, in and out, in and out in an attempt to ground himself and stop the tears from falling.

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

He shakes his head no. That ache in his chest comes back in full force, now accompanied by a sinking pit in his stomach. 

“My chest hurts and I feel weird.” He says as Spinel looks at the door anxiously, “I think it has to do with the dream I had but also with the peacemaking process, I think.”

Spinel grimaces.

“Can you elaborate on that feeling?” He asks, “I know you don’t want to talk about your dream… but I can help you figure out your feelings.”

Steven let’s go of Lars and bites his cheek, “I don’t- I don’t know if I should. I don’t want to burden you with my problems.”

“Dude, you’re not going to.” Lars sighs, putting his head in a hand. “I have experience with weird feelings when it comes to your body.”

Steven’s eyes widen, “its- it’s not like that!” He squeaks

Lars exhales softly and puts his hand on the younger boy’s shoulder, “Cis people can feel bad about their bodies too, which is called dysmorphia. Not the same as dysphoria, which is what trans and enby and gender-nonconforming people feel. Which is what I felt. No one’s experience is the same and honestly? Yours is fucked up.”

Steven fidgets, “what… what does it feel like?” He asks timidly.

“What does what feel like?”

Lars opens his mouth to explain when the door to the room opens, revealing Blue Diamond. She has a look of concern on her face. “Is everything all right? You were supposed to be back in the throne room ten minutes ago.”

Steven freezes, he knows she's concerned, but he can’t help but think back to his nightmare. Seeing the other diamonds is one of the last things he wants right now.

“He had a nightmare,” Spinel says, noticing the look on his face. “He needed some time to calm down.” She says wrapping one of her arms around his waist and doing the same for Lars, then jumps up and deposits them into her hair loop while she lands on her shoulder. “But we’re all good now!”

“Y- yeah, I’m mostly good now.” Steven stutters, staring at himself in the facets of Blue’s enormous gem. He looks just as bad as he feels. 

“You wanted to know what my dysphoria had felt like right?” Lars asks, scooting closer to his hybrid friend, “well, imagine feeling like something is wrong with you, but you don’t exactly know what. A constant feeling of anxiety whenever you have to change or get into the shower because you hate your body. You feel horrible all the time because you don’t feel right. There are people out there who will never see you as who you want to see yourself, just a shadow of who you once were. I guess you can relate to that last one, huh?”

A lump forms in the hybrid’s throat, and tears once again threaten to fall from his face as he nods. He wants to say something, but he can’t form any words. “I- I’m sorry?” he chokes out.

“For what? You didn’t do anything.”

“I don’t- I don’t know.”

“If it’s about turning me pink, then it's no big deal. That was years ago, dude. You shouldn’t feel bad about it now. I like how my body is at the moment.”

“That’s- that’s good,” he says, clenching the shirt over the general area over his gem, bunching up the fabric. 

“Everyone’s experience is different. If you’re feeling a certain way, then you should look into it. Maybe talk to Shep? They have more expertise in that area than me.” he says, implying and knowing that he would never consider trying out the opposite, especially since he spent so long convincing people to use  _ those  _ pronouns considering he spent so long getting Gems not to use them for him.

He doesn’t want that for himself. 

He doesn’t want to feel this way. 

He doesn’t think he needs to

He doesn’t think he should. 

But he is, and he doesn’t like it. 

“I don’t like this.” he says to himself as the door to the throne room opens, “I don’t want this. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to feel this way!” his voice rising.

Blue freezes, she heard him. Everyone had. 

“Are you all right, steven?” Blue asks, carefully picking him up out of her hair loop. He tenses up when she does so.

“I- don’t know! I’ve been feeling horrible, I haven’t been feeling myself!” he says as the tears well up and starts to fall. “They’ve been treating me like her and I think its getting to me, my chest hurts a- and I’ve been feeling anxious and i-” he cuts himself off with a sob,  _ I think there’s something wrong with me.  _

Steven fully expects the diamonds to tell him to keep it together and stop being dramatic, but instead, they all stare at him with mixed expressions. Everyone is staring at him as he sobs in Blue’s hand. Why are they all staring instead of talking?

“I’m- we’re sorry, supernova,” white diamond says, catching him off guard with that nickname she hasn’t used for him in a while. “We- I- I should’ve noticed sooner. That you were not taking this well, that it was affecting you negatively. We still aren’t good at human stuff, and we’re still trying to understand all of it. It’s hurting me, too. How they were talking about her like that. I wish I could say we can cancel it, but that would only worsen our relationship. You’re still new to being a diamond and we’re still new in learning about how humans work and your needs. I’m still not good at this comforting thing,” she chuckles, smiling at him softly.

“I-its” he hiccups wiping his face on his sleeve, “it’s okay. I don’t know how much of this I can take anymore.” He doesn’t want to sit through any more of it.

“We are starting soon, all unauthorized gems please leave the room.” Yellow Pearl speaks up. A feeling of dread wells up in his stomach as blue sets him down. Looks like he doesn't have much of a choice.

“Maybe we can say that we cannot continue until they use your proper name.” Blue pearl suggests, giving him a small smile as she puts a hand on his shoulder. He laughs as Spinel jumps down from Blue’s shoulder and not so carefully drops Lars, who swears loudly and chases her out of the room. 

Steven takes a few deep breaths, to stop the tears from falling, to calm himself down. But a few deep breaths won’t get rid of the tightness in his chest, the conflicted feelings that he has about himself, or the feeling of dread that’s rooted deep inside of his stomach.

“If we cannot get them to cooperate, we will end the peacemaking process,” Yellow says sternly.

“But yellow, that will cause us to be on the brink of war.” Blue frowns.

“Which is something we do not need.” White says, “we will do our best. We have been doing what they’ve asked for, they’re cooperating.”

“Just barely! They’re taking all of their anger out on Steven. They’re making this hard for him. For us.”

Steven sits down in his throne, the hiddenite that will record his every word stands next to it. He lets out a noise in discomfort; he does not want to do this. He doesn’t have the mental capacity to process anything properly right now. 

The hiddenite gives him a look of concern. He waves her off when she’s about to speak.

“Were sorry that you have to go through this. You know they won’t talk without you here.” Yellow says, trying to be comforting. “If you need to step out, you are welcome to. Just write it off as one of your… human functions.” She grimaces, making steven chuckle, “if there was any other way that we could’ve done this, we would’ve. I just want you to know that.”

He nods, he understands that.

The screen flickers to life, and that feeling of dread worsens until he feels sick.

“You don’t have to talk this time if you don’t want to,” Blue says, giving him a reassuring smile.

He smiles up at her; he feels better now.

There’s a brief flicker of static before the Iolorian appears on the screen. Their signature sneer is ever present. His heart drops, and a lump forms in his throat. 

“What took you all so long? Was little Pinkie giving you trouble?” They laugh, their voice still filled with that venom that stabs him right through his heart.

“We had some issues we had to take care of that suddenly came up,” White says, her voice eerily calm.

“I knew I shouldn’t have allowed those breaks to be extended!” They scowl, “leaves all of you with too much time to pick up broken things that Pink leaves behind.” They laugh, mockingly.

Steven squeaks, the hiddenite looks up at him again with a pained expression.

“Enough of that,” Yellow commands, “this has nothing to do with that.” she has that same expression as last time. “Now, we have one more request for you. We ask of you to use his proper name, which is Steven. Not Pink, Pink is no longer with us.” her voice sounds strained as she says that last sentence. It still hurts, even after all of those years. 

They scoffed and roll their eyes, “what do you mean she’s gone? She’s right  _ there. _ ” they point at him, “if she wants to use that ridiculous name, then that’s fine! Let her play! Let her have her fantasies!” 

“I think that’s enough of that for now. Now, let’s discuss…” 

Steven stops paying attention to that. Or, well, he does his best to listen. But he doesn’t contribute, in fear of once again being harassed by their royalty. He’s always known that people will hate him for what his mom did, no matter what. But… this feels different. He doesn’t know why.

It hurts, it always does. Whenever a gem used to come and enact their revenge on him, they always tried to kill him. That’s just how it was when he met new gems at first. But now it’s not like that. It hasn’t been like that for years. But now that someone he doesn’t know is actively hating him again, he doesn’t know what to do. 

Maybe it’s because they’re saying it, and then those words are worming their way into his brain and burying itself there. Making him feel things he doesn’t understand and doesn’t want to feel. Somehow ruining his mental health further. 

His mind wanders back to what lars told him. Those… words associated with feeling bad about your body. He doesn’t feel bad about that. At least he doesn’t think he does. He was so confident in himself! He got the diamonds to understand him! He doesn’t want to go through that process all over again; he doesn’t know if he can. He doesn’t want to. 

He hates it. He doesn’t think he should feel this way.

Why is everything he knew about himself falling apart around him? Again? 

“Why isn’t she talking? Did you tell your dear little Pink, oh, I mean S _ teven  _ that you will handle it? The bigger gems will handle it, huh?” their royalty says, snapping the hybrid out of his thoughts, “does she not remember? What she had done with you three to my planet? What she did to my ancestors?”

“Steven and Pink are two different people. He does not have her memories.” Blue calmly reminds them, “if he had her memories, he would have apologized, but how can he apologize for something he didn’t do, much less remember?” 

They are silent for a moment. Then they burst out laughing, “that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!”

“I’ve never been my mom!” he says, speaking up. Why does he always have to explain this!? “Pink doesn’t exist anymore! She gave up her form to have me! She gave up her gem to have me! I’m tired of having to explain this all the time!” he says, clutching his head and screwing his eyes shut. He shouldn’t have said anything. But he just couldn’t have stayed silent when his existence is being talked about like that.

“Steven-” one of The Diamonds says, he’s too distracted to distinguish who.

“No! I’m tired of this! I’m tired of being treated like her!” He yells, not even noticing the pink tint to his skin. “I don’t want to be associated with her anymore! I’m- I” he starts to say when he opens his eyes, but cuts himself off when he sees the pink hues radiating off of him.

No.  _ No.  _ He shouldn’t have said anything. He shouldn’t have lashed out.  _ He shouldn’t be pink _ . 

“Steven…” he hears one of The Diamonds say again, but his mind is too muddled to pay attention to who said it.

“I-” his voice cracks, panic rising into his throat. Why did he do it here? Why did he turn pink in front of the diamonds? 

He lets out a strained noise before he stands up abruptly; he needs to get out of here. He needs to go. He wants to go home.

So he runs.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven comes home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im very excited for this chapter :3c

Pearl is in the middle of teaching one of her classes when she feels her phone vibrate within her gem. She does her best to ignore it since she usually keeps it on silent when it’s in her gem, but since Steven is on Homeworld, she thought it would be best to have it on vibrate. 

It vibrates a few more times, effectively distracting her from her lesson now. “I’m sorry everyone, my phone is distracting me. Take a quick break!” she says with a sheepish expression on her face. 

She retrieves her phone from inside her gem and is rather surprised to see that Lars, of all people, has tried to call her and left texts. Isn’t he in space right now? Why would he be calling and texting her?

But that’s when she reads the texts, the panic rises in her throat. 

Lars: hey are u busy, im gonna call you

Lars: its important

1 missed call

Lars: its steven related

Lars: hes having a panic attack

1 missed call

Lars: something relating to the diamonds n the peace making thing i think 

Lars: pick up god damnit

1 missed call

Lars: fuck ur prolly teaching one of your classes right now

Lars: he wanted me to call you

Lars: uh call back when u can please

She immediately dials him back and steps out of the building, into a somewhat secluded spot in little homeworld. Which is behind said building.

“Finally!” he says, “Sorry if you were teaching a-”

“Is he okay?” she asks, cutting him off, “what happened? Does he need to come home? Are The Diamonds letting him come home?”

“Um- first, not really. Second, he had a nightmare right before I showed up and was shaken up by it. Third, yeah, he wants to come home. Fourth, none of The Diamonds have come around yet.”

“Put me on speaker.”

“Okay. you’re on speaker now. Do you hear that, Steven? I got ahold of Pearl, she's on the phone with me.” 

“P-pearl!” she hears him sob, and it breaks her heart to hear it. She hasn’t heard him cry in… a while. 

“I’m here, Steven. It’s okay.”

“I-i want- I want to go home.” 

“I know. I know. What happened?”

“Don- don’t want to t-talk about it right n-now.” 

“That’s okay. Will you be willing when you come home?”

“Don’t know.” 

She hums, “have Lars and Spinel been helping you?” 

“We’re trying!” she hears Spinel in the background.

“She’s packing his things right now and trying to keep the pebbles away.”

Stars, he hasn’t been there for very long in homeworld time. How could have everything just suddenly fall apart like this?

She hears steven let out another sob, and her metaphorical heart breaks into pieces. “Just stay on the phone with me, I’ll cancel the rest of this class, luckily this was my last one for today.” 

Pearl reenters the classroom, muting herself on the call first before she says anything. “Hello everyone, I’m going to have to cancel the rest of this class as something has come up, thank you for being patient and waiting. You are dismissed.” 

“Pearl? Are you still there? You went quiet.” Spinel asks 

“Oh! Yes- wait. I’m still muted,” She unmutes herself “Oh! Yes, I was just dismissing my class.”

“Okay! just making sure!”

“Are you feeling better, Steven?” Pearl asks, as she sits back down at her desk chair.

“N-no. I- I want to go home.” 

There’s an unspoken  _ I want to be with you  _ that hangs in the air. “You’ll be home shortly, it’s okay.”

She hears the sound of a homeworld door opening, “hey Blue,” she hears Spinel say without her usual spunk and excitement. “He wants to go back home, so I’m taking him.” 

She hears blue diamonds loud sigh, “that’s all right. We don’t know what to do right now. Their royalty is very upset.” Pearl hears Steven whimper, and her heart continues to shatter. “Once again, Steven, we’re all so sorry. You- you didn’t deserve any of what they were saying to you.”

“‘S okay.” 

“But it isn’t. Head home. Let us figure this out.”

“Thank you, Blue. For checking up on him.” Pearl says, hoping that she will hear her.

“That was Pearl. I called her.” Lars says, confirming that she did, in fact hear her. 

“Oh!” she laughs, “on your little primitive communication device! Well, you’re welcome. Feel better Steven.” 

“Okay!” Lars claps, “guess that’s my queue to go find the off colors and for you to get him back to the temple. See ya later, buddy.”

“Thank you for calling me Lars, I’m glad I had my phone on vibrate,” she chuckles, standing up, ill be at the house in a moment. See you in a few, Steven.” 

And with that, Lars hangs up.

With a sigh, the lithe gem stands up from her chair and walks out the door. She waves and smiles at all the gems on the way to the warp pad. Not having any time to stay and talk if she wants to be there when Steven and Spinel warp in. 

She warps into the house and quickly makes her way up the stairs, through the sliding glass door in Steven’s room, up the stairs to the dome and opens the automatic door, just in time for the two to warp in. 

Pearl rushes up and takes the exhausted, and still vaguely pink, looking teen off of Spinel’s shoulder, and his bag. “Thank you. For looking out for him.” 

“It's no problem.” she smiles back, “someone’s got to make sure he stays out of trouble.” she jokes despite the situation, letting out a raspberry as she warps off again. 

“Can you walk?” she asks, hefting him up.

He nods and stands upright, though, leaning against her fully. He just looks… so exhausted.

Pearl walks him down to his bedroom and deposits him on the bed and he sighs defeatedly, reaching out for her. 

He looks so small. 

“Don’t- don’t leave,” he whispers, sounding small. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere,” she says and sits on the bed with him, putting his head into her lap as she leans back against his pillows and backboard. “Do you want to talk about it?’

He shakes his head no, “I just want to cool down.”

Pearl hums in response, running a hand through his hair.

Cat steven, who must’ve heard all the commotion from wherever she was sleeping, appears at the top of the stairs. She mewls curiously, jumping up onto the bed to investigate. 

“Oh hello, Cat Steven,” pearl chuckles as the cat inserts herself between the crook of his neck and her leg. 

“Hi, kitty.” Steven smiles as she purrs.

“She knows you aren’t doing too well.”

“Yeah?” his smile disappears. That was the wrong thing to say. 

“Yes. she wants to comfort you, too.” 

It reappears, it’s small, but it’s still there.

But just as quickly as it appears, it vanishes. Leaving Pearl to wonder is she truly said the wrong thing, or if he’s thinking about telling her about what happened to him on homeworld. 

There’s a silence between the two of them that’s only broken by Cat Steven’s purrs and the crashes of the ocean waves on the beach. She should tell Garnet and Amethyst that steven is home early - much earlier than expected - for an unknown reason that left him in the midst of a panic attack. 

It’s suffocating.

“I am going to tell Amethyst and Garnet that you’re home early. Is that okay?” she asks as he sits up, somewhat dislodging Cat Steven to whom he apologizes to and shucks off his jacket, throwing it to the ground, his phone thunks against the floor, he cringes.

“That’s fine.” He says getting up to get his phone off the ground, sighing in relief when it’s not broken. He takes off his shoes while he’s up, too. 

Pearl: Hello, you two, Steven came home early. He hasn’t told me what happened yet, but he had a panic attack over something on Homeworld.

Amethyst: aw dunk, is he okay?

Garnet: he’s going to want to talk to you. It is very important for you to listen him.

Amethyst: wait dont u have a class rn

Pearl: yes, but I let them out early.

“Pearl?” Steven calls out to her, he looks incredibly upset and broken, “I think- I think there’s… something wrong with me.” He says that last part quietly, he shrinks in on himself. Almost regretting he said anything. As if he was afraid to say it.

It’s very important for you to listen. Those words ring in her mind.

She opens her arms wide, wordlessly welcoming him into them again. 

The tears fall. True, genuine tears. One she hasn’t seen in a long, long time. Just like the ones she heard over the phone earlier.

He lets out a loud sob as she comes over and wraps her arms around him. “I d-don’t know what’s g-going on. I’ve just been an-anxious and- and I have a weird feeling in my chest, and I -I’ve just been feeling  _ horrible.  _ The people were trying to make peace with. They kept on calling me by  _ her  _ name and using  _ her _ pronouns and it  _ hurts.  _ Which made me dream about being treated like her by the diamonds and-” he inhales shakily and lets out another sob into her jacket. He’s shaking. “And that just m-made me feel  _ worse. _ ”

“Oh, Steven,” she mumbles, rubbing his back, as the two of them sink to the floor. “Just let it out, you’re safe. It’s fine.”

“Th-then Lars mentioned something about feeling weird about your b-body and how it was different for me and it made sense? I hate this feeling, Pearl. I hate feeling like this. I lashed out at them when they kept on calling me her and I panicked.” he says, burying his face deeper into her jacket, letting loose another sob. “So that’s how we got here,” he mumbles, trying to make a joke.

“Lars is trans, right?” Pearl asks, she knows all about this. She fought with them so long ago.

“Y-yes?” 

“Do you think-” 

“N-no! Not that way anyway!” he yelps, pulling away from her suddenly, looking almost insulted that she would ask him that.

“I know that. I was referring to what Sadie’s partner identifies as. Do you think you feel that way?” She backtracks.

He sniffles but doesn’t answer right away. “I- don’t‐” there must be a million things going through his mind right now, “I don’t know.” He puts his head on her shoulder again. He’s no longer crying as hard as before.

“That’s okay.” She says, placing a kiss on his forehead.

“He said I should talk to Shep. To figure everything out.”

“Are you going to?” Pearl asks cautiously.

He goes silent again; she doesn’t even know if she’s doing this right. She hopes that he knows that he will be loved no matter what. If Stevonnie was accepted, he would be too. Pearl understands that these feelings are complicated for humans, and must be even more complicated for steven.

“I’ll do it later,” he finally answers, but quietly enough for pearl needing to strain to hear him.

She hums in acknowledgment, not pushing him to do anything right now.

The two of them sit there for a while, not moving much at all, the teen perfectly comfortable in his guardian’s arms. Not long later, the warp pad chimes, signaling the other two have come home. 

Amethyst appears first, catching the attention of Pearl who nods wordlessly, it’s fine to come up. The purple gem looks back to the fusion and gives a thumbs up.

Cautiously, the two of them come up the stairs. The teen does not seem to acknowledge them aside from a glance and a small smile.

Amethyst sits next to him, wrapping her arms around his waist to envelop him in a hug. He leans into her slightly but does not move away from Pearl. 

Garnet removes her visor like she always does in times of his vulnerability. She sits next to him on his other side, holding out a hand for him to take, which he does so. She squeezes it in comfort.

He squeezes back. The facet of the gem embedded in her palm, who he recognizes as Ruby’s gem, radiates a comforting warmth into his palm. And he feels safe. He feels loved. But even though he’s surrounded by the people who love him the most. He can’t bring himself to feel okay. Not yet. There are feelings inside of him he can’t quite describe. These feelings scare him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had the "i think theres something wrong with me" line in my head ever since i started the fic and im SO glad i was finally able to write it! this is my first time ever writing through pearls pov too so i dont know if i got her quite right! let me know if i did!


	6. Chapter 6 Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stevonnie answers some questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is all chatfic!! it was kinda hard tbh lmaoo its also a two parter!! the second part will be from stevonnies pov outside of the chatroom setting
> 
> also! some of this was inspired by a word a sound a song by aenor_llelo
> 
> also i realized last chapter that i did not put the characters and their usernames up in the notes, i will fix that! (in the morning bc i am tired, posting at 2 am lmaooo)

Strawberry 🍓💖: good luck on homeworld! I love you lots!! 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

Biscuit 🥐💖: love you too! 💖💖💖💖💖💖

~

Srawberry 🍓💖: sorry that things arent going to well, hopefully itll get better

Strawberry 🍓💖: stay strong for me, biscuit 

~

Strawberry 🍓💖: lars mentioned that you had a nightmare, are you doing okay?

~

Strawberry 🍓💖: just got the news about you needing to leave homeworld

Strawberry 🍓💖: what happened?

Strawberry 🍓💖: you dont have to tell me if you dont want to

~

Strawberry 🍓💖: are you okay?

~

Strawberry 🍓💖: steven?

~

Strawberry 🍓💖: do you need me to come over?

~

Strawberry 🍓💖: im starting to get worried

~

Biscuit 🥐💖: sorry for worrying you

Biscuit 🥐💖: i have a lot on my mind rn and… i dont think im okay

Strawberry 🍓💖: what do you mean?

Biscuit 🥐💖: ...

Biscuit 🥐💖: honestly, my mental health has been on a rapid decline and it just got so, so much worse. Im struggling with myself and my identity. I dont know whats going on

Strawberry 🍓💖: do you need me to come over to talk about it in person?

Biscuit 🥐💖: yeah, thatd be great actually

~

Steven: hey shep

Steven: lars told me to talk to you

Steven: about gender stuff

Shep: oh yeah whats up, dude?

Steven: how did you figure out that you were nonbinary? Can you tell me?

Shep: oh yeah, for sure

Shep: I was a freshman in high school, learned about everything lgbt related thru rumblr? Probably not the best way to learn but thats just how it was for me. 

Shep: then i went “haha, you know what would be wild? If i were to be this” to myself jokingly and then one day i went oh fuck maybe i am this

Shep: so then i started identifying as genderfluid, just incase if i wanted to use my assigned pronouns (spoiler alert: i didnt) but i didnt really acknowledge this about myself until near the end of sophomore year and started using they/them pronouns

Shep: and i liked it! So i switched to identifying as nonbinary, came out, and changed my name

Steven: how did.. You feel during all of this

Shep: what do you mean?

Shep: like dysphoria?

Shep: cuz my dysphoria is fucking weird

Steven: no i mean, how did you feel when you discovered this about yourself

Shep: oh! I felt relieved because ive always felt like there was something strange about myself, like something i couldnt quite place. My deadname didnt belong to me, it never felt like it did. So thats one of the reasons i changed it

Shep: changing your name when youre enby is not necessary, but if you want to you can

~

Shep: you good? You havent responded in a while

Steven: yeah, connie is here so im gonna talk to her about all… of the things im feeling

Shep: okay, good

Steven: honestly… all of my problems stem off from my mom and this happens to be one of them and i dont want to burden you with that and you’re still new to gem stuff

Shep: do you feel like you might be?

Shep: its chill dude

Steven: what?

Shep: nonbinary

Steven: i dont know, maybe?

Steven: i… had to go through a lot for Gems to stop using she/her for me and calling me rose/pink and… i dont know if i can go through that again

Shep: was the situation from earlier because they were using those pronouns for you?

Shep: you dont have to answer that if it makes you uncomfortable

Steven: a little…

Steven: im gonna go and talk to her now

Shep: okay, let me know if you have any more questions

~

Sword Leaf 420: i have found a steven

Diamond leaf: ayyy lmao

Diamond leaf: i heard peridot say that once and it haunts me

Diamond leaf: she knows what memes are

Cryptid leaf 69: u good dude?

Crptid leaf: are u goodenough to anser mu questions

Cryptid leaf: soory for the typos i pulled am all nighyrt and im very tired

Pizza Leaf 1: go to sleep bitch

Diamond leaf: not really up for it rn, sorry ronaldo

Cryptid leaf: its fine

~

Steven: thank you for being on homeworld

Steven: and for talking to me about all of that

Steven: it helped a lot

Lars: no problem dude

~

Shep: i talked to steven

Lars: what’d he say?

Shep: he said maybe

Lars: ah

Lars: probably still questioning

Lars: wouldnt be surprised tho, when i heard about what happened in there, i dont know how he was able to handle it the previous time

Shep: he said all of his problems extent from his mom

Shep: fucked up

Lars: yeah its kinda shitty its happening this way for him

Lars: poor kid has been through a lot, i dont know how hes even emotionally stable

Shep: i dont think he is

~

Lars: oh btw, a hiddenite stopped by the room after blue, you, and spinel left

Lars: she wanted to know if you were okay

Lars: she sent a message to your diamond communicator after i told her you left

Steven: ill check that when im able to

Steven: are you still on homeworld?

Lars: yeah for a little while longer, the off colors got to talking to taaffeite and the gang

Steven: :thumbsup:

~

Fry leaf: hey steven, you want some free bits? To cheer you up?

AnExperience: fuck yeah

AnExperience: hi im here now btw

Pizza Leaf 2: !! stevonnie!

AnExperience: hi kiki

AnExperience: id offer u to hang out, but stevens unfortunate feelings transfered over to me

AnExperience: also i dont know how long ill be here because of that

Pizza leaf 2: aw dude thats okay

Leaf That Has No Gender: f

Leaf That Has No Gender: and you are?

AnExperience: im stevonnie! Fusion of steven and connie! they/them, nonbinary intersex, one fourth gem. I cant believe we forgot to tell you about us (and by extent stevens other fusions with the gems because smoky (theyoyomaster, they/them) and rainbow 2.0(UmbrellaTheSecond, he/they) sometimes appear and will use this chat)

AnExperience: sunstone (she/they) would prefer not to use this so shes not here

AnExperience: and also steg (he/him) since that would be weird of him to be on here, but its very rare for him to showup at all

Leaf With No Gender: so stevens fusions can use other pronouns?

Pizza Leaf 1: oh god i forgot about steg

Deejay leaf: steg… he looks like a walking anime character

Space Leaf: thats because he is

Leaf But Gay: ah. Steg

Leaf But Gay: stole the show at a sadie killer concert while the world was ending (again) with opal im assuming

AnExperience: tbh steven is still surprised that it even worked, like,,,,,, powers were barely working and all of that

AnExperience: yep that was opal and

AnExperience: i love opal, wish she was able to be around more

AnExperience: unfortunately shes super forgetful yes, thats what they chose to go by, also steg is fully male so yeah

Leaf That Has No Gender: im assuming that there are other fusions that dont involve steven?

AnExperience: oh yeah! There are lots! Youve met rhodonite and fluorite, theyre both fusions! Unless you mean the crystal gems

Leaf That Has No Gender: yeah, them

AnExperience: well theres garnet, for one thing

AnExperience: two small lesbians in a trenchcoat to from a bigger lesbian

AnExperience: ruby and sapphire (garnets components) got married a couple years ago after the reveal of pink cuz they both felt garnets existence was based on a lie but now it's on their accord!

Doctor Leaf: it was a nice wedding

Doctor Leaf: kinda weird to see my dad and Jamie dancing together tho

AnExperience: Jamie was in love with garnet, and i think ur dad was still upset about not being the mayor anymore

Doctor Leaf: u kno what that makes sense

Leaf That Has No Gender: have i met her?

Fry Leaf: you definitely have 

Leaf But Gay: she came up to us before the graduation and gave us a thumbs up

Leaf That Has No Gender: oh

AnExperience: now for sugilite, all I can say is nicki Minaj, she sounds almost exactly like her and its fucked up

AnExperience: sardonyx is literally a late night tv show host, occasionally known to smash

Leaf But Gay: wasnt sugilite that gem that crashed the gym you made on the beach once when u were younger

Leaf But Gay: or steven I mean

AnExperience: yes

Deejay Leaf: wack

AnExperience: I might be able to answer some questions tho actually, I'm feeling a bit better

AnExperience: tho by not much

AnExperience: I think Stevens just happy to be home

AnExperience: peedee im comin to get my bits

Fry Leaf: rad

Doctor Leaf: why do gems have teeth, my dude

AnExperience: cronch metals n rocks n shit like that

AnExperience: gems have sharp and very strong teeth, steven has semi retractable sharp ones that he found out that he had like??? Years ago? I think around the time mr. dad got the dondai because i remember having them when we raced the asshole who shall not be named

AnExperience: think of it like sharks maybe

AnExperience: but gems dont need to eat so its super weird

AnExperience:but theres a few that do (such as amethyst and some of the little homeworld gems, but not many, its rare)

AnExperience: we have to get new silverware A Lot bc either steven accidentally fucks up a spoon or a fork or amethyst straight up eats em

Deejay Leaf: wack

AnExperience: even tho im 1/ 4 th gem, i still have some features? Its really weird 

AnExperience: i also think it would also be pretty horrifying if gems Did Not have teeth tho tbh

Cryptid Leaf: !

Fry Leaf: ronaldo go the fuck back to sleep

Fry leaf: oh god hes typing it's too late

Deejay Leaf: how do u feel abt gemstones from here on earth

AnExperience: like… in jewelry?

Deejay Leaf: like in general, like if I came up to you with a chunk of ruby or like a handful of Pearl's how would you feel

AnExperience: i… I never really thought about that.

Pizza Leaf 1: babe dont give them a crisis

AnExperience: i want to think about this but like. I really dont! 

Deejay Leaf: oof sorry dude

AnExperience: its fine! Try not to ask things that will give me or steven a crisis

Leaf With No Gender: hes still typing…

Doctor Leaf: never before have i felt such fear

Cryptid Leaf: these were all meant to go towards steven, but you still kinda count so here comes my questions: Who is in control? Steven or Connie? whats it like to be a fusion? Do the weapons come out of the storage part of your gem? Can I stab you with your own sword, will you be okay if i do? Can I come to homeworld? Can i learn gemglyph? Is that the only language gems have? Does shapeshifting hurt? Can Steven and I fuse? Whats that noise you guys make sometimes? Who's phone are you typing on, Steven's or Connie's? Ever broken the law? Are birthstones kinning? Do you have organs? What happens when your gem is removed? Do you ever change clothes? If the gems are made of light, does that mean they glow in the dark?

Doctor Leaf: holy shit

Leaf But gay: oh god

Leaf With No Gender: fuck dude thats a lot

AnExperience: i can answer some of these, its fine

AnExperience: for that first one, none! Im my own person! Garnet first told me that im an experience (hence my username), steven and connie are still here, i can feel them! Their thoughts sometimes come through so thats why i talk to myself. Im pretty stable! 

AnExperience: For the second one, think of it like a never ending conversation or dance. The dance ends when we unfuse. Honestly its better to ask one of the permafusions around rather than me. Such as crazy lace and garnet

Space Leaf: i can ask rhodonite and flo too

AnExperience: them too, i dont think i have storage in my gem? Only pearls do, since thats what they were made for. My sheild comes from my gem, obviously, but i dont think i have a storage space in there

AnExperience: please dont! I will die! You can come, only if you promise not to try to interrogate the diamonds or any other gem, but alas, steven does not trust you not to do that!

Doctor Leaf: Please Do Not Commit Murder

Pizza Leaf 2: why would u ask to stab someone 

Pizza Leaf 1: dont gems poof when they get stabbed like that?

AnExperience: yeah, that happened to pearl when steven was 12 or 13, a horrifying experience tbh

Leaf With No Gender: well yeah, if a family member got stabbed and then fucking died infront of me, id be fucked up too

AnExperience: for gemglyph, language and the noises questions: steven and the diamonds are working on a written/spoken language that nongem life forms can learn. So yes, technically speaking, gems have more than one language! And those noises gems make are their gemsong! I have my own! But it doesnt manifest as much because im only one fourth gem! But whenever you hear a gem talking in some sort of musical way, or if you hear “printer noises” coming from steven when hes tired, thats gemsong

AnExperience: its gets suuuuper glitchy whenever a gem is not well, happens when steven is suuper tired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO THOSE EPISODES HUH
> 
> i did not edit this chapter one bit lmaooo


	7. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven tries something new, Stevonnie eats some frybits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just want to say something really quick first, please dont interact with me or my fics if you ship St*vinel or ship steven with his diamond half (or any of the gems for that matter.) those two ships make me really uncomfortable and i dont want anyone who ships them to read any of my things, if i find out you do, your comments will be deleted. i have no toleration for that kind of thing.
> 
> ANYWAYS!! things have been super stressful for me, online classes are hard, depression kicked my ass..................... su ended :') i got into object shows
> 
> this chapter is 3k words long!!! wow!!!
> 
> hope you enjoy!!!

Steven sits on the bottom of the stairs that lead to his bedroom, anxiously waiting for Connie to arrive as he talks to Shep over the messaging app that they all use. He talked to pearl, he’s glad he did because he needed to get it out to someone who wasn’t there. But he needs someone human, someone who would understand what he’s going through better. Someone like Connie. 

As he waits his mind zips back and forth from what Lars told him back on homeworld to his and Sheps current conversation.

It makes sense, it does. He’s starting to understand it.

But that doesn’t exactly mean he has to like it, either. 

He hears the familiar sound of someone walking up the stairs to the beach house and stands up quickly, knowing exactly who it is. A smile grows on his face as he looks out the window and spots Connie reaching the top of the stairs. 

Whether it be desperation for human contact or that he just needs to be hugged by his girlfriend, he opens the door quickly and embraces her in a hug as soon as she gets close enough. 

She doesn’t let go right away, neither does he. Why would he want to let go?

The two stand there, for just a moment, relishing each other’s embrace before Connie pulls away slightly, and it feels too soon.

Connie places a soft kiss on his lips, a reassurance that tells him that she’s here now, and it’s okay. He returns that kiss eagerly. But she pulls away from that, too. He missed her; he missed her touch, her humanity, her warmth. 

She places smaller kisses all over his face, kissing away his tears when he had started crying in those short moments. 

He didn’t even realize he was crying until he lets out a sob.

She leads him inside, up the stairs to his room where she sits the both of them down on his bed. 

“How are you feeling now?” Connie asks, her voice barely above a whisper. 

“Better, now that you’re here,” he responds, his voice equally soft. His song warbles with his tears.

“Good.” she hums, “I’m here, take as long as you need, okay?” she says and takes his hand in hers. 

It takes him a couple of moments to stop crying. “I’m tired of feeling this way,” he says shakily

“What do you mean?” Connie squeezes his hand and smiles when he puts his head on her shoulder.

“Anxious? Really shitty? Other things I can’t describe?” he says, squeezing his eyes shut. He doesn’t want to start crying again. “I’m tired of crying, I just want to feel okay.” 

She says nothing, steven thinks she’s waiting for him to continue. 

“I don’t know how to move on from everything I’ve been through, I don’t know how to live without worrying about if someones going to come and try to kill me. I know I’ve made peace, but there are people still out there who hate me for what my mom did, for what I did to the empire, for… everything. I don’t know how much of this I can even take anymore.” he says shakily, trying his best to hold back his tears, “I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know what I am anymore. My life is falling apart around me and I don’t know what to do about it. Just when I think everything is fine, something happens to make it not fine.” his body betrays him as tears leak from his eyes, “I can’t stop  _ crying. _ ” he sobs

He hears Connie sniffle; he lifts his head to see her crying too. “H-hey… I thought I was supposed to be the sad one here.”

“Well, I’m sorry if I can't help to cry if my boyfriend finally realizes he has trauma and needs help.” she says, shoving him slightly, “you said you didn’t know who and what you are anymore? And that you were struggling with your identity over text? Care to elaborate?” Connie asks and grabs the tissue box above his bed and hands it to him.

“Well.” he quickly explains the events that happened on homeworld, what he assumes Lars didn’t tell the group chat already, “what he said made sense and… I… I talked to Shep about it before you got here.”

“What’d Shep say?”

“Oh, I only asked them how they discovered how they were nonbinary. They said they felt weird about themselves and when they finally found out, it felt right.” 

“Does it feel right?”

“What?”

“Nonbinary?” 

Steven shrugs, face burning in embarrassment, “y-yeah? I guess it does? But I’m not too sure. I don’t want to go through what I went through when I was convincing the gems on homeworld to not call me by her name, to not use her pronouns for me. It took a lot of time and patience and I have no idea how I didn’t break down then. Why did I break down about this  _ now? _ “

“You were much more patient back then. Also, your brain is finally catching up to you, it realizes it’s safe. It realizes that you aren’t in danger, that you don’t have to worry about much anymore.” She pokes his forehead, “I’ve started having nightmares about everything a couple of months ago. They got so bad that my mom suggested that I should go see a therapist to help me work everything out.” Connie says shakily, “maybe you should go talk to your dad about it.” She suggests.

He nods, “I’m just really struggling… and it sucks. All of my problems stem off from my mom and so does this one and I hate.”

“Because it’s so personal? Do you think you’re pinning it on your mom so you have someone or something to blame?”

The hybrid groans and put his face in his hands, “I like the label… it- it’s just the situation and- and maybe I am pinning it on her. Maybe I just made that up as an excuse not to use it.” He caves in on himself.

“You haven’t tried it yet, do you want to?” She says quieter, softer, more comforting. “just between the two of us?”

Suddenly he’s nervous, but he nods anyway. “S-sure. Just- just try it out. I don’t want to commit to it right away.”

“Of course.” She kisses his cheek and takes his hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. “Ready?”

He nods wordlessly and fidgets with the zipper on his jacket

“I love my significant other, my partner, steven universe. They’re so cool. I love their personality. Their smile is adorable. They are beautiful and handsome, I love them so much. They mean the world to me. Whatever they decide to do, I will support them.” Connie says and gives him a large smile, “how was that? Did you like it? How’d it make you feel?”

Steven doesn’t say anything at first, he stares at her with wide eyes and a fuzzy feeling throughout his body. There was a pang of excitement when Connie referred to him with those pronouns. He… he liked it. He loved it. It made him feel  _ good _ .

“I- I liked it a lot.” He says, his smile grows to match hers, “I- it made me feel good.”

Her smile grows impossibly wider, “I can start using those pronouns for you if you want?” She offers.

A sudden pang of anxiety replaces the warm and fuzzy feeling. “I- I’m not ready for that. I want to figure out what’s going on with me first.”

Connie nods in understanding, “okay. Whatever you want. I won’t push.”

“Can we fuse?” 

She laughs, kissing him, “of course. Do you even have to ask?” standing up and offering him her hand.

He takes her hand, yelping as she pulls him up into a standing position. Steven loves how strong she is. 

The two of them don’t even have to dance to fuse, but they do it anyway. The closeness is grounding. 

Connie twirls him around, eliciting a laugh out of him. A real, genuine laugh, something he hasn’t done in a while. 

They pull each other close, it only lasts for a second before Connie dips him and presses her forehead against his. A mirror to when they had first fused. But intentional, rather than an accident.

He tops off the dance with a kiss to her lips

~

For the first time in their entire existence, Stevonnie does not feel as good as they think they should be. A wave of emotions suddenly come flooding in and they realize that these are all from steven. 

He was not feeling well, so now they aren’t feeling well. 

This is the first time that they’ve ever felt this way.

Regardless, they let out a sigh and stretch before digging around in their drawer in stevens dresser, picking out a T-shirt and a large (for them) comfortable sweater to lounge in, with a pair of comfortable leggings. 

A while back, steven suggested it to one of their dads, Mr. Greg, that Stevonnie could use some outfits of their own since they could use a bit of variety in their clothing instead of just wearing their components clothes. 

It was a fun trip, hanging out with him as they chose the clothing that they like, keeping some at stevens house, and some at Connie’s. 

They change quickly before flopping face-first into stevens bed, letting out a groan. They hate this feeling. 

They don’t think it’s that dysphoric feeling that Lars was talking about, but that general feeling like shit type of thing?

Stevonnie rolls over onto their back and picks up Steven’s phone. Opening the messaging app that their components both use to talk with their friends. Logging Steven out before logging themselves in.

The first thing they see is Peedee offering fry bits to Steven.

Those sound good right now. 

They respond, making their appearance known to the chat and stand up, stretching. 

Stevonnie digs out their pair of flip-flops and puts them on before heading down the stairs. 

Luckily, none of the gems are home so they can grab Steven’s keys and head down to his car without being noticed, not before giving lion a quick pet and a greeting first.

“Hey Lion,” they say and then make those noises that lions make in greeting to each other. 

Something that steven learned after he found some TubeTube videos about lions that one time.

Lion greets them back in return and presses his head into their hand before flopping back over to resume his nap.

Getting into the Dondai, they readjust the seat, mirrors, and everything before they drive. It’s not that far of a drive, but they really just want to get back to the house and rest. So they drive to the big donut and park in the parking lot. Mr. Dewey doesn’t mind whenever Steven does it.

They get out of the car and make their way towards the fry shop where Peedee is waiting at the window. He gives them a smile 

“You look like shit. The bits I assume?” he teases.

“Haha thanks, Peedee,” they say sarcastically, knowing that the teen didn’t mean it that way, “so do you.”

“It's the depression, and also the fact that my brother is a total dipshit.” he says, giving them the bag of bits, “hopefully these are enough to cheer you up a little.” He smiles.

“Yeah.” They sigh, running a hand through their hair, “hopefully, never can go wrong with the bits!” Stevonnie gives the teen a thumbs up before walking back to Steven’s car.

Thinking about it, they don’t think steven has eaten fry bits in a good while. Hell, they don’t even remember if they have had fry bits at all.

With a shrug, they put the bits in the passenger seat and head back to the temple

_ The car will smell like fries for a while. _

** That’s okay. I can always get a car air freshener ** .

_ True. _

As soon as Stevonnie enters the house again, they find a sticky note to write down that Steven needs a car air freshener thing so Steven can buy one of them. They stick it on the fridge so he will see it later. After that, they put the keys on the hook by the door. 

Stevonnie heads up the stairs, grab a blanket, and wrap it around themselves, and head back downstairs to sit on the couch. A makeshift sad nest since they don’t have the energy to make an actual one themselves. 

They sit on the couch because they know that steven has spent most of the past day laying there, it's probably good a change. Even if they will continue laying down somewhere else.

They dig their hand into the bag of bits and put a handful in their mouth. A vague feeling of nostalgia as soon as they do.

** I haven’t had these in a while **

With a sigh, they wrap the blanket around them tighter, doing their best to get comfortable even with the feeling of discomfort that’s slowly starting to ebb away

They take out stevens phone again, scrolling through the chat. They introduce themselves to Shep and explain steven’s other fusions, and smoky and rainbow being in the chat. 

_ Should we allow questions? _

** I think it would be good to get our minds off of things.  **

They type that out in the group chat, answers bucks question about why gems have teeth, it's a weird thing. But then Ronaldo notices and types out every question he has. Which Stevonnie suppresses a groan at. Ronaldo is… nice… but he can be way too much when it comes to these types of things. 

The moments where Ronaldo went too far with things flash through their mind and they shudder. Okay. maybe they don’t like Ronaldo and more or less tolerate him. 

‘How do you feel about the gemstones here on earth.’

** Oh gosh, I never really thought too hard about this.  **

Stevonnie hums, they never really thought about it either. Like, what would an earth gemstone mean for steven? Or even the rest of gemkind? How would they all feel about it?

_ I don’t think we should think about it too much.  _

Right. Right. They shouldn’t think about it too much. 

Just then the warp pad chimes and Amethyst steps off of it. 

“Oh! Hey, Vonnie! Didn’t expect to see you here” she smiles and jumps onto the couch with them, “sad nest time, huh?” 

They nod, “steven… wanted to try something.”

Amethyst gives them a suggestive look.

“Its nothing like that!” they yelp, burying deeper into their blanket. 

“What was it, then?”

_ Do you want to tell her? _

** No. I’m not ready to tell her yet. **

_ Okay. _

“Personal… reasons,” they say stiffly.

_ Smooth.  _

They didn’t know what else to say. Steven didn’t want to give his reason just yet. 

Amethyst blinks, “okay, that’s cool. He’ll say something when he’s ready, right?”

They nod, grateful that amethyst doest press any further and allowing them to eat their fry bits in peace. “Oh, Amethyst,” they say before she heads into her room. “What- what do you think about earth gemstones, like ones that aren’t… uh, alive.” 

Amethyst raises an eyebrow, “what brought this question on, Von?” 

“Uh- sour cream asked it.” 

“Fucking weird.” 

“Yeah.” 

“This is gonna give me a crisis holy shit.” 

“That’s what I said, so I’m done thinking about it now,” they say, digging their hand into the bag of bits again and putting a handful into their mouth.

Amethyst doesn’t say anything after that, she pulls her phone out of her gem and steals some bits from them. “Is it cool if I chill with you?”

“Yeah,” they say, readjusting the blanket around themselves, grateful for Amethyst wanting to stay. To keep them company

Then Ronaldo posts his wall of questions and they inhale through their teeth. 

“What’s up, Von?” amethyst asks

“Ronaldo.”

“In Steven and Connie cool teen chat?” she says, teasingly, “but seriously, if he makes you uncomfortable, why is he even in there?” 

“Its- it’s not really up to me? I don’t think?” everyone can edit the server and mess around with it, but they don’t want to straight-up kick Ronaldo, especially if they aren’t feeling their greatest right now. “He doesn’t have any power in the server, thankfully.” he’s the only one who doesn’t. “I’m just going to answer his questions,” they mutter to themselves

** Do you feel that way about Ronaldo? Do you hate him that much? **

_ I thought you knew how much I don’t like him. At least  _ Kevin _ got better after Jamie, Ronaldo is still the same.  _

** You’re right, but I’d feel bad if I didn’t at least try to give him a chance. **

_ He’s had too many chances. He’s not even trying. _

** I know.  **

Stevonnie grimaces at the one about asking to stab them. Agreeing with kiki silently, as they answer the rest of the questions.

_ He’s never going to homeworld _

** Agreed. **

They only have a few questions left, they only glanced at the block of questions originally, but they didn’t read them all. But, they read the last few, to answer them all at once. Though, as they’re typing to say that they are, their eyes land on the last one. 

Their eyes widen.

_ ‘What happens when your gem is pulled out’  _

No. no… no no no no NO!

A memory flashes into their shared brain.

_ Steven!  _ They hear Connie in their head, but she sounds so, so far away.

It flashes again. Whites large fingers coming for Stevens gem, her nails cutting and digging into his skin to get the gem out and- and- suddenly there’s a sharp pain in  _ their  _ gem. Oh so similar to when it happened. 

They gasp out a sob, their entire body flashing pink and- and- they can’t keep it together anymore.  _ They cant, they cant, **t̶͔͖̦̲̞̂̅ḧ̵̛̩͎͕̗̺́̉̇͒͝ͅe̷̡̝̝̣͌y̸̱̠̟̪̺̆̆͗̋̐̕͜ ̶̹͚̦͓͓͝c̸͚͎̻̠̈͒á̵̲̩̭͕̋̐͜n̴͍̼̂̃'̶̪̝̍͜ͅț̵̢͔̪̻͚̩́!̷̘̬̹̫͔̅̑̾** _

The last thing they hear is Amethyst calling out their name as they split. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i started writing this before growing pains, but then it came out and i was like oh shit, so uh,,, i might take More inspiration from growing pains :)


End file.
